Happiness is a Wood Roasted Chicken
A little over a week ago, when snow and icy winds kicked spring two states away just as we were beginning to think it was here to stay, Violeta and I decided to engage in that most satisfying of indoor cold-weather activities: Staying in, ordering in, firing up the DVD player.
Living on 2nd Street in the East Village of Manhattan has its benefits. Sure, weekend nights kinda suck, punctuated as they are by high-volume caveman chants audible for three city blocks, spirited impromptu contributions to the Battle Hymn of the Visiting Idiot. But, within those same three blocks in all directions, I’ve also got Tinto Fino, Sunshine cinema, d.b.a, Il Buco, Prune, Russ and Daughters, and in just two days, the new Whole Foods at Houston and Bowery, complete with an in-store fromagerie masterminded by one of the world’s most gifted ager of cheeses, Herve Mons.
And then there’s Lil’ Frankie’s, 45 seconds door-to-door, assuming no weekend traffic.
It took several years for me even to consider ordering anything but the beautifully-executed thin crust Neapolitan-inspired pizza, cooked in a wood-fired oven so hot that pizzas take about seven minutes to cook. My friend Kiri suggested I try their Wood Roasted Chicken one night last autumn, and now I am hooked, having ordered it since then maybe a dozen times.
The same intense heat that chars the pizzas also turns chicken skin into bacon’s first cousin, crackling crispy while the flesh inside stays plenty moist (except for one delivery order I got several weeks ago, when the bird had clearly been overcooked.)
The chicken is then doused in a brown chicken stock flavored with lemon, capers, and sage and served with mashed potatoes fortified with plenty of olive oil: Naples meets country comfort.
Lil’ Frankie’s, 19 1st Avenue (between 1st St. and 2nd. St.), 212-420-4900